


Too Bruised to Try to Not

by Rednaelo



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Gen, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 06:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10758510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rednaelo/pseuds/Rednaelo
Summary: From Jack:alright so im not actually home but i will be in a couple hours.keep him warm for me while im gone?





	Too Bruised to Try to Not

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caedrea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caedrea/gifts).



> I'm in the midst of writing this big ol' sex scene for PTS but my soft little heart was just like, 'Can't we do something sweet for a little while?' 
> 
> So this is that. 
> 
> Thanks for reading; thanks for your patience.
> 
> -Bec

The cash sticks to the blood on her fingers which makes the counting a little more difficult.  Nisha lays the bills in stacks of ten, side by side, along the bartop, while Henry watches her work, his fat throat quivering with a swallow.  Nisha pretends not to pay attention to him but her smile is all for his fear and her delight.

“…nine, ten.  One, two, three, four….”  He’s counting along with her, trying to keep quiet but she hears him.  He won’t get her numbers wrong, if that’s what he’s trying to do.  She lifts her chin and he stops.  His placating grin stutters beneath her own smooth smirk.  Nisha returns to counting.  Henry remains silent.

“Well, it looks like this adds up just fine,” Nisha says.  She gathers the cash and folds it back into the envelope in time with Henry’s sigh.  “Until next week, Henry.”

“Have a good one, Ms. Kadam,” Henry says.  She pretends not to hear his overexaggerated slump onto the bar before the door closes behind her.

The staircase up into the alley is dreary and dank after the storm.  In the distance, there’s still the lingering purr of thunder.  Nisha tilts her hat forward on her brow and stashes her envelope of prize money on the inside of her leather jacket.  It’s a long walk home.  There are plenty of scum and opportunists in the shadows along her route but they recognize the blade strapped to her leg or the sticky and torn tape wrapped around her fists and decide to take their chances elsewhere. 

Dawn will come groggily in a few hours and Nisha won’t fall asleep until noon, most likely.  Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she stops in the filmy halo of the nearest light to check it.

From Jack:

_any fun at the ring 2nite??_

Nisha snorts and zips back her answer with swipes of her finger rather than tapping out each individual key.

_Not bad. Not much of a challenge but still fun. You home rn?_

She waits in the humming fluorescent glow, leaning up against the nearest building.  A couple of kids smoking across the street eyeball her and she just smiles to herself before turning back to her phone. 

_yeah come over_

Nisha grins.  She does an about-face and goes back the way she came. 

 

“You liar,” Nisha mutters to herself when she steps inside Jack’s studio and is greeted only by darkness.  His beat up, old corvette wasn’t in its spot downstairs either.  The door wasn’t even unlocked; she had to fish out her copy of the key.  Nisha digs her phone out of her pocket to call Jack and chew him out.

“Jack?” a tired voice croaks amidst the ruffling noise of the comforter shifting.  “You home?”

Great. 

Nisha looks down at the bright beam that is the screen of her phone, cutting through the black. 

From Jack:

_alright so im not actually home but i will be in a couple hours.  
keep him warm for me while im gone?_

“You son of a bitch,” Nisha says to her phone.

“Who are you?”

Nisha looks up.  She can’t see anything in this damn darkness.  Whoever-it-is turns the bedside lamp on and she blinks a little bit and he blinks back. 

“Who are you?” Nisha asks back.

“Jack’s boyfriend,” the kid in the bed says, rubbing his eyes and giving Nisha sleepy glares.  “Oh, you’re the one in the pictures.”

“Jack didn’t tell me about you,” Nisha says.  She puts her phone away and goes to the kitchen.  There’s beer in the fridge.  She pops one open.

“’m name’s Rhys.  We haven’t been going out very long.”

“You’re sleeping over without him being here,” Nisha points out as she pulls herself onto one of the barstools, facing the bed and this Rhys who’s sitting there, cross-legged, in one of Jack’s old yellow sweaters and probably not anything else, judging by how he has the blankets gathered up around his hips like a weird skirt.  “Not like him to let new playthings do that.”

“We haven’t been _going out_ for very long,” Rhys clarifies.  “We’ve known each other a while.”

“Then why have I never heard of you?”

“Dunno, why haven’t you?” Rhys gives her this sneer that’s pretty cute and makes her wanna punch him in the nose.  He’d probably go back to that pout he was giving her earlier.  Complete with bloody nose and crying eyes.  The smirk fades away in a hot second, though, right after she thinks this.  “Jack’s new project is the big priority right now.  Sure you heard about _that._ ”

Right….  The Next Big Breakthrough for robotics industry, Jack had said.  Which is probably why Asshat Bastard lured Nisha into his home only to remember where his brain went and be like ‘Oops, nevermind the nice bloodfuck we coulda had, still at work actually.  By the way, won’t you keep my precious new squeeze company?’

Nisha’s gonna kill him.  

She knocks back a few more gulps of beer and when she puts the bottle down, Rhys has left the bed.  True to form, he’s not wearing anything except his underwear (boxer-briefs, heather gray) and sighs his way into the kitchen. 

“So, if you were looking for him, he’s not here,” Rhys says, opening the freezer and digging around.  “Probably won’t be home until…pfft….  Seven, maybe.  It was eight yesterday.”

“He invited me,” Nisha says and flicks open her texts and holds her phone out to Rhys so he can look.  Rhys squints at the screen, a pint of pistachio icecream in his hands.

“What the fuck,” he says.

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“What, is he asking you to have sex with me?  Is that what that means?”  Rhys asks, his pitch wringing up to something outraged and squeaky and his face is all red and he’s staring at Nisha with his eyes wide and shiny.  She laughs at him.  He scowls at her.

“If that’s what he wanted then he wouldn’t be at work, he’d be here to watch.  Or join in.”

“Fucking bastard,” Rhys mutters.  He sits one stool away from Nisha and pops the top off his ice cream so vehemently, the lid goes clattering off the counter and onto the floor.  “You don’t have to stay.  You could even _not_ stay.  Go home and forget this ever happened.”

“I could do that but home is far away and I’m hoofin’ it tonight.  So I’m gonna steal the couch and you’re gonna deal with it, pretty boy.”

Rhys says nothing but he mouths something with his nose all scrunched up in annoyance and shoves ice cream into his mouth.  There’s a tattoo on the side of his neck and a couple of dark hickeys beside it here and there.

“You livin’ here now?” Nisha asks him, curious. 

Rhys shakes his head, glancing at her from the corner of his eyes. 

“I’ve been ‘house-sitting,’” he explains.  “When Jack works the late nights, he gets me to come over and watch the place.”

“Huh.”

“Which is fine ‘cuz we work at the same place and the commute’s easier from here.  I take the train.”

Nisha leans on her elbow at watches Rhys while he takes loaded spoonfuls of pale green ice cream and chases one after another.  His ankles are hooked together with his toes perched on the rung of the stool.  He doesn’t look at her but he’s paying attention to her so closely that his ears are all pink, even in the poor lighting that’s cast from the lamp by the bed. 

“Jack said,” Rhys finally says, his voice a mumble.  He licks his lips and starts again.  “Jack said he and you went out for a long time.”

“When we were in college, yeah,” Nisha says. 

“He doesn’t talk about you a lot but you’re in that photo on the coffee table and so is his daughter.”  And that turns out to be enough for Rhys.  Enough for what, Nisha’s got no clue.

She finishes off her beer and gets up to chuck the bottle in the trash. 

“I’m gonna take a shower,” she tells Rhys.  He waves her off.

“Do whatever you like,” Rhys says, resigned to how even if he didn’t say it, she still could.  Nisha smiles and rolls her eyes as she makes her way to the bathroom.  What a sad kid.  Lonely.  Nisha’s willing to put down money that Rhys goes all moony for Jack and he just eats that shit up like the narcissist that he is. 

“God bless ‘em,” Nisha says to herself as she knocks the bathroom door shut behind her.

She leaves her hat on the sink counter and her clothes on the floor and the tape wrapped around her fists gets thrown into the trash.  The blood washes off easily and she uses Jack’s shampoo, ignoring the bottles of product that are unfamiliar.  Of to two bath poufs hanging from the shower rack, she uses the yellow one, not the pale blue. 

In the closet, there’s usually a wicker basket full of extra clothes that she borrows when she comes over.  Inside it now are only a big t-shirt and a pair of boxers.  Nisha pulls these on and fluffs a towel through her hair before coming back out, steam billowing into the apartment behind her. 

Rhys is on the couch, the comforter dragged off the bed and wrapped around his shoulders.  Nisha sniggers at him.  He’s all wrapped up; he looks just like a little kid.

“I tried to call him but he didn’t pick up his stupid phone,” Rhys tells Nisha when she walks towards him, drying off her hair.  “If he doesn’t want you to fuck me,” red ears, pink from the nose up, “what the hell else could he mean?”

“You’ll probably stop feeling so bummed out when you quit hanging off of every little word Jack says.  He’s great but he’s not God, you know.  Don’t take him so damn seriously.”

Rhys groans, morose little lump of blankets that he is.

“Ughh, I _know_!” he insists, head in his hands.  Nisha sits down next to him on the couch.  “I _know_.”

“Honey, you’re fucked,” Nisha tells him. 

“I know,” Rhys says again.  “I didn’t know….”

“And now you do.”

“And now I do….”

“If you want, we could fuck just to spite him,” Nisha offers.  She’d probably enjoy it.  Rhys is cute.  She wouldn’t have any problems taking him to bed.  Better yet, taking him to Jack’s bed because, dammit, he cheated her on this too.  New pet, bluh.  No wonder he’d been so dodgy about hooking up lately.

“I don’t wanna have sex with you,” Rhys tells her.  “You’re way hot and could probably beat me up,” Nisha grins like a shark; Rhys sees her smile and flushes and looks away, “but you’re right: I’m fucked.”

He’s in love.

“That’s too bad,” Nisha says. 

“It’s the worst.”

Nisha chuckles and slings her arm around Rhys, tugging him in for a hug because why not.  He makes this little gasp and his hand lands on her thigh for trying to catch himself before he realized what she was doing. 

“You’ll be alright, kid,” Nisha tells him, pat-pat-patting his shoulder. 

Rhys is quiet.  His hand hasn’t left Nisha’s leg and his breathing is all shallow.  When she looks down, Nisha can see the flush on the back of his neck.  Rhys draws his feet up onto the couch and tucks his knees against Nisha’s hip.  He wraps his arms around himself and tugs the comforter a little closer.

“Thanks,” he says.  His head settles against her breast and Nisha decides, what the hell, and pulls his blanket up so it’s covering him entirely.  “What’s your name again?”

Nisha snorts.

“It’s Nisha, you brat,” she says.  She slides her hand under the blanket to wrap around his back and hold him at the waist.  He’s real cozy.  Feels nice against the A/C blasting the room pretty diligently.

“You smell like him,” Rhys mumbles.

“I used his soap.”

“Yeah, that’s why….”

Far be it from her to suffer the needy whims of anyone ever.  Nisha’s body is sore from fighting all night and she left her money unprotected still in her jacket pocket on the floor of the bathroom.  There are thin lines of pale blue light peeking around either side of the blackout blinds on the windows.  Rhys’ hand shifts and buries itself in a soft clutch on the front of Nisha’s shirt.

There’s a couple reasons she could use to justify getting up and moving or pushing the kid back into bed to give her space.  Nisha gets out her phone instead and just flicks around on it, waiting for when she starts to feel tired enough to lay down.  Maybe she’ll drag Rhys with her; he’s the one with the blanket.  It’s big enough to share.


End file.
